Microbial Carotenoids

Introduction

Since living organisms can produce many chemical substances in their metabolic systems, their functions can be maximally utilized to produce highly functional substances at high efficiency without the chemical synthesis process.
　Carotenoids are typical pigments produced by living organisms in their metabolic systems. They are well known as red or yellow pigments in tomatoes and carrots and as nutrients. Typical carotenoids include beta-carotene and astaxanthin. Some microorganisms also produce carotenoids.
　To enable the use of carotenoid-producing microorganisms, NITE has conducted advanced carotenoid measurements and analysis of carotenoid production and metabolism in microorganisms.
 

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Analyzed Microorganisms

NITE selected 43 microorganisms such as yeasts and actinomycetes and analyzed the extracts by liquid chromatograph - mass spectrometry (LC/MS) to confirm whether they produced carotenoids and to identify the carotenoids they produced.
　The detailed analysis results are available to be downloaded from the DBRP (Data and Biological Resource Platform).New!! (DBRP is only available in Japanese.)
　In the analysis result column of the table below, you can download photographs of the colony shapes from "Colony", images of the cell shapes from "Cell", nucleotide sequences from "Genome", predicted carotenoid-related gene sequences from "Gene Prediction", and LC/MS measurement results from "LC/MS", respectively.

This study was sponsored by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

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Analytical Instruments

The mass spectrometer used for the analysis is introduced below.

• Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometer (FT-ICR-MS)